I first read the book in about 1987 or 1988, and it made a strong impression both for its insights into personal experience and for the research ideas it suggested.  I have recommended the book many times...It is richly detailed, directly relevant to the lives of people in all walks of life, in nearly all parts of the world, and (for that matter) throughout time.  Equally importantly, it suggests that its subject matter is an evolved feature of human nature....[It] was Tennov's book that first demonstrated to me that important features of human nature may be identified and studied successfully as co-occurring traits (which makes them unlikely to be accidental or cultural). In sum, I consider Tennov's book a classic.  And a classic as relevant to the person in the street as to psychologists, anthropologists, and other academics. -- (Don Brown, Professor of Anthropology, UCBS, author of Human Universals)

In Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennov combines scientific rigor with an artist's penchant for examining and describing what lies below the surface of everyday life. Tennov coins the word limerence to describe obsessive love, an emotion that, like a disease,  literally infects the psyche of the person under its spell.  Case studies are used to illustrate the many symptoms of limerence.  Readers will find, in these case studies, people who are very much like themselves and, in that, perhaps some comfort and certainly some insight into this universal yet very private condition. Love and Limerence is an insightful well-written book that I recommend to anyone interested in the question "what is love?"

Having experienced reciprocal love, I found Dorothy Tennov's exploration in Love and Limerence satisfying in that way in which truth satisfies our wonderings about our feelings and behaviors.  Having also suffered the same feelings that were unreturned but exacerbated by the mere politeness of my too-much beloved, I found in her book a relieving explanation of my mad behavior.